AT THE RAINBOW'S END
It was for two reasons that Montana Kid discarded his "chaps" and
Mexican spurs, and shook the dust of the Idaho ranges from his
feet. In the first place, the encroachments of a steady, sober,
and sternly moral civilization had destroyed the primeval status
of the western cattle ranges, and refined society turned the cold
eye of disfavor upon him and his ilk. In the second place, in one
of its cyclopean moments the race had arisen and shoved back its
frontier several thousand miles. Thus, with unconscious
foresight, did mature society make room for its adolescent
members. True, the new territory was mostly barren; but its
several hundred thousand square miles of frigidity at least gave
breathing space to those who else would have suffocated at home.
Montana Kid was such a one. Heading for the sea-coast, with a
haste several sheriff's posses might possibly have explained, and
with more nerve than coin of the realm, he succeeded in shipping
from a Puget Sound port, and managed to survive the contingent
miseries of steerage sea-sickness and steerage grub. He was
rather sallow and drawn, but still his own indomitable self, when
he landed on the Dyea beach one day in the spring of the year.
Between the cost of dogs, grub, and outfits, and the customs
exactions of the two clashing governments, it speedily penetrated
to his understanding that the Northland was anything save a poor
man's Mecca. So he cast about him in search of quick harvests.
Between the beach and the passes were scattered many thousands of
passionate pilgrims. These pilgrims Montana Kid proceeded to
farm. At first he dealt faro in a pine-board gambling shack; but
disagreeable necessity forced him to drop a sudden period into a
man's life, and to move on up trail. Then he effected a corner in
horseshoe nails, and they circulated at par with legal tender,
four to the dollar, till an unexpected consignment of a hundred
barrels or so broke the market and forced him to disgorge his
stock at a loss. After that he located at Sheep Camp, organized
the professional packers, and jumped the freight ten cents a pound
in a single day. In token of their gratitude, the packers
patronized his faro and roulette layouts and were mulcted
cheerfully of their earnings. But his commercialism was of too
lusty a growth to be long endured; so they rushed him one night,
burned his shanty, divided the bank, and headed him up the trail
with empty pockets.
Ill-luck was his running mate. He engaged with responsible
parties to run whisky across the line by way of precarious and
unknown trails, lost his Indian guides, and had the very first
outfit confiscated by the Mounted Police. Numerous other
misfortunes tended to make him bitter of heart and wanton of
action, and he celebrated his arrival at Lake Bennett by
terrorizing the camp for twenty straight hours. Then a miners'
meeting took him in hand, and commanded him to make himself
scarce. He had a wholesome respect for such assemblages, and he
obeyed in such haste that he inadvertently removed himself at the
tail-end of another man's dog team. This was equivalent to horse-
stealing in a more mellow clime, so he hit only the high places
across Bennett and down Tagish, and made his first camp a full
hundred miles to the north.
Now it happened that the break of spring was at hand, and many of
the principal citizens of Dawson were travelling south on the last
ice. These he met and talked with, noted their names and
possessions, and passed on. He had a good memory, also a fair
imagination; nor was veracity one of his virtues.
